


The Keeping of Six

by Sp00py



Category: Little Nightmares (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Horror, Kidnapping, spoilers for ln2 ending, wibbly wobbly timey wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:21:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29404032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sp00py/pseuds/Sp00py
Summary: She meant something to him, this girl in the yellow raincoat. The Thin Man doesn't know her, but he knows he must protect her.
Relationships: Mono & Six (Little Nightmares), The Thin Man & Six (Little Nightmares)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 238





	The Keeping of Six

**Author's Note:**

> Have as many headcanons and theories jammed into one fic as possible. I am sorry if u wanted more fluff after the Wooing of Six. This is... this is not it.

The dream ended. He woke up to a world of walls and doors. All lies and illusions for how solid they felt. The Thin Man knew what lay beneath. In every whorl that seemed to stare, in ever carved pupil gazing down halls: eyes. Pulsating under the thin skin of the waking world, leaking through the cracks, the Flesh that shaped this reality.

He had dreamed of a person with a yellow raincoat. A pleasant dream, as it always was. And not the first.

The door was open before him. He straightened. Was that what had woken him? The feel of a dark and strange presence ghosting along his skin, pulling him from the only friend he knew? Doors did strange things in the signal tower, but they never opened of their own accord before.

The Thin Man stood and approached the door, ducking under the lintel. The hall he could see beyond remained a hall, instead of shifting into a completely new location. How strange. At the end sat a single, flickering television set. Another eye, of course, watching him but also watching the world.

He crouched down in front of the screen and tuned the signal, until it showed a child with a paper bag toppled on the ground, beside --

The Thin Man inhaled sharply. Her. The person in the yellow raincoat. Was she always so tiny? He’d thought her bigger in all his dreams.

He pressed his hands to the screen, wanting to call out to her. She scrambled back, terror on her face. A child. She was just a child, and the world was dark and frightening to someone so bright and small. It made his heart clench in its own kind of fear, thinking on all the harms that could befall her if she remained.

The girl ran.

The Thin Man pushed harder. The screen warped, gave way, opened to the world like a sore from which the signal tower’s infection could crawl. The boy with her, slow and dull unlike her vivid yellows, got to his feet and stumbled after her.

He followed leisurely, not bothering to fight against the thickness of the world around him so different from his norm. Though excitement thrummed in him, the Thin Man was patient. He'd find her, again. Ah, there she was, waiting for the boy in the hallway instead of running. The Thin Man shook his head sadly. Even friends were a danger, out here.

They ran, together. Down the hall, around the corner, into a child’s bedroom. He did a cursory glance for the boy, but he was both unimportant and not there. It was easy to find what he was truly looking for. The girl cowered under a table, so, so small. So easily, another could have found her, if this was how she hid. The Thin Man lingered in the doorway, overcome by her helplessness as she panicked and fled, tripping only a few steps in.

He reached out to her, like he’d done to so many other children, to whisk her away and keep her safe.

She screamed. They vanished, leaving behind only the flickering shadows she’d cast.

  
  
  
  


“Dear,” the Thin Man called quietly, announcing himself as he opened her door. His voice was a raspy, low crackle of static, unaccustomed to speaking because who was there to talk to, before? The Viewers? The Flesh? No, he’d never realized how alone he was, and how lonely that had made him, until now. “Are you in here?”

At the silence, he ducked into the room, set apart from the over-saturated pinks and purples of the rest of the tower. A haven built specifically for his dear girl, of memories and trinkets, whatever he thought would please the silent, sullen child.

Of course, she was in here, but, for reasons soon apparent, hadn’t responded. Though she could leave, she rarely did anymore. Too many times had she gotten lost chasing phantom sounds or images, and he’d found her huddled as small as she could make herself, trembling with tear-streaked eyes. He never begrudged her her explorations, because she was a child, and children often had to learn for themselves how the world worked.

He’d returned her to her room every time, eventually without bite marks on his hands for his effort. She was fierce for her size, but even she grew tired of this game of hide and seek.

The girl was curled up in a suitcase she’d imagined into existence. (How she’d taken to the workings of the tower! Already bending it to her whims.) The sounds of her music box were winding down, having lulled her to sleep. Both seemed to mean comfort and safety to her, and she treasured them above all other possessions. He wondered where they had come from, but didn’t want to forcefully pry into her mind for the answers. He’d rather she share her secrets willingly. Eventually, he was sure she would.

The Thin Man set a wooden train set down piece by piece, careful to make as little noise as possible before he slipped back out. He closed the door carefully behind him.

The next time she was awake, he brought in a book to read to her. And the next, a puzzle that she destroyed in a fit of pique, the pieces floating away, never to be consolidated into one whole. And the next, a doll she beheaded. At first, he had thought this was _all_ in childish rage, but as his dear girl played, as he watched along with the Flesh through the eyes hidden across the tower, he realized that simply was how she enjoyed herself. Not all the time, but often. As special treats, he’d occasionally catch a stray cat or bully, and let her have her fun. But she would never do it while he was there, some juvenile rebellion making her cross her arms and plop down to glare at a corner until he left.

This did not deter the Thin Man, because he knew this was in the girl’s best interest. Outside of the tower, she was just food or fun. Here, she was protected, cherished. He wished she would speak and share her thoughts, though. What sort of person was this girl in the yellow raincoat? What did she like, or dislike? Did she realize what he had done for her? What was so different from the other children he’d taken? He’d _kept_ her. She was safe. She could speak, if she wanted (he had heard her singing to herself, on occasion), or look him in the eyes. She did none of those things, keeping her thoughts and feelings closed up tight inside.

The Thin Man knew one thing, at least. She didn’t like the Flesh, which had a keener interest in her than any of the other children absorbed into the transmission. He understood why it was so interested in her, because how could one not be? But it just made the girl anxious, and sad, and afraid. She’d begun a war on eyes in her room, scratching at portraits, ripping out teddy bear eyes, gouging out strips of wallpaper, but so many things had them, so many things simply gave the impression of eyes, and that was all the Flesh needed to peer in at her. If it were possible, he would have shielded his dear from them, as well, but nobody could escape the Flesh’s gaze, not him, not the boy, and certainly not her.

That did not mean she didn’t try, before she learned the futility of it. The Thin Man had never felt such terror before, seeing her pressed against a TV she’d found in her increasingly rare wanderings. Seeing that boy reaching through to pull her back. Seeing him _succeeding_.

He appeared behind the girl, just as her feet disappeared through the screen. He thought for a horrible second he was too late, but the portal was still open, the veil thin enough to reach through and snatch her up. There was resistance, this time, of that boy yanking on her arms. Gone in a moment, but there. The Thin Man pulled her back through as she shrieked.

She continued to scream, kick, cry as he brought her to her room and set her on her suitcase. She tried to run past him, but he simply scooped her up and deposited her there again. After the third attempt, she stayed, face wet and red, breath hissing in anger. The Thin Man closed and locked the door. Given time, she’d calm, and understand. The world was too dangerous. He’d already seen the beginnings of bruises forming on her wrists where that boy had grabbed her.

Knowing now that his dear was safe and unable to escape, the Thin Man returned to the television. Only seconds had passed beyond the screen, and the boy hadn’t even recovered from his shock.

The chase this time was not to capture, but simply to observe. The Thin Man hadn’t expected the boy to be able to interact with the TVs like that. Nobody had ever done so, before. All he did was run in fear, always running, powerless. Unimpressive. Likely it was the unfathomable machinations of the Flesh that had allowed that to occur. Similar to its consumption of the world, when the skin between it and those watching had grown thin, and they slipped right through into its folds. Even now, it ate, and the Thin Man was just sad it hadn’t had the chance to snatch up the boy.

Soon, though, he lost the boy, distracted by his eagerness to return to his girl, pulled back by the frequencies of the signal tower winding through wood and cement and glass, always dragging at his flickering form in this realm. Another time, then. There would always be time, when the tower and world were so out of sync.

He left the boy and returned to the playroom door. He pressed an ear to it. Quiet sniffles leaked through. It seemed she was calming, or had tired herself out with her tantrum.

  
  
  
  
  
  


And so time passed, in a way. Time truly meant nothing in the signal tower, looping and breaking and rewinding, devouring itself like an ouroboro, but things did change. The girl grew up. The Thin Man did not. It was curious, seeing a child grow in the signal tower’s acidic glow. Seeing how it affected her, to be safe and unheeding of the dangerous world outside. Her collection expanded, though nothing could replace that music box in her favor. She smiled only at it, and the expression would drop away the instant she knew the Thin Man was near.

The more it happened, the more the Thin Man couldn’t ignore it. It made him feel oddly… sour, to be treated in such a way after what he had done for her. It would have been easy to let the Flesh subsume her as it had so many, or let her dissolve into comforting static like the other children he had saved. She was still whole, still her, which was the best anyone could hope for in this world. A thank you, at the least, would have been nice.

He worked out the restless energy these feelings brought to life by occasionally slipping through those cracks in the world and chasing down her friend. Perhaps if he brought him to her as a playmate of sorts, she would be happy. He didn’t _want_ the boy in the signal tower, curious as he was about him, but he’d endure. For her.

Somehow, the boy eluded him, though the Thin Man had to admit he wasn’t trying too hard. He never showed any signs of powers in their chases, which the Thin Man suspected was actually one long, agonizing hunt on the boy’s side of things. It made him more confident that the boy was nothing special and easily replaceable.

As his dear grew older, the boy stayed the same, trapped by linear time, so what was years to them was only minutes to him. They grew farther and farther apart in time. Eventually, the Thin Man was sure she’d outgrow the friendships of children. She had him, and he had her, and that was all one needed in this world.

  
  
  
  
  


As a teenager, his dear entered a second window of rebellion. She’d been so small for so long, but suddenly she was at waist-height (if she ever stood up straight), agile and feral. She hunted on all fours, venturing forth into the signal tower’s halls, the sound of her music box playing like a ball of twine unwinding in the labyrinth, always leading her home.

The Thin Man gave her her space. It seemed the right thing to do, though he didn’t know how he knew. He couldn’t recall if he’d ever been a teenager, himself. Surely he had? Had he been a child, too? If only he’d known his dear back then. Perhaps she would care more for him, had they grown up together. A silly flight of fancy, especially as he could recall no beginning to himself, only the eternal watch over the world and the amorphous desire to save its children, all under the watchful gaze of the Flesh. Until his dear.

Then it was a very specific desire to save. To protect. And look, she’d already grown so much under his care!

The Thin Man now released bigger prey to keep her interest. Mannequins and monsters, collections of bullies. Then he’d retreat to the shadows to watch, just in case they somehow got the upper hand, and he must swoop in to save her, or simply to catch a glimpse of that wild joy of the hunt. It kept her from exploring too pointedly, opening doors or clawing at the ones that wouldn’t budge, obviously in search of something. If only she would _tell_ him. He could find it for her. He would grant anything to her should she ask.

She never did, though, and simply hunted like a moody cat, chasing the little Bullies that scattered throughout the tower.

One had slipped away, this time, more clever than the rest. The Thin Man settled in for a long, unhurried hunt.

The bully was quick on her feet, but disoriented and so very, very lost. His dear crept along behind her on hands and knees. The little bully went scrambling into a room and came up sharp. She gazed up at something that flickered across her face. It was only a moment’s hesitation, but that was all his dear needed.

She pounced, knocking the child over, long, thin fingers wrapping around her porcelain head. Instead of a quick flex of muscles to crush the skull, his dear wrenched slowly side to side, eliciting piercing shrieks as the bully clawed at her hands and arms.

She almost had the bully’s head entirely off when something else caught her attention. The glow. The _TV_. Something was on it, and his dear crept closer, leaving the bully to struggle weakly, neck broken but not quite dead yet.

“ _Mono_ ,” his dear whispered, pressing her hand to the flickering screen. The Thin Man tensed and immediately shifted his attention to what she was seeing.

That boy. Mono. A name for a faceless thing, someone so unimportant, yet she still somehow yearned for after all this time. The television set in front of the girl flared and shattered, causing her to jump back in shock and crush the bully accidentally underfoot. The Thin Man disappeared from the tower.

The boy was running through a crashed train, slipping, scrambling, fear in every line of his body. Though he was nothing like his girl, the boy had the same determined spirit that kept him moving. Kept him surviving.

Mono. The name felt strange, rolling around in his head. As the boy uncoupled the rail cars and began to coast away on gravity, the Thin Man stared, etching this feeling of deja vu into his mind. It wasn’t familiar like his dear was, instead bitter and heavy, darker than the world around them. He didn’t like it, but he couldn’t simply pretend it didn’t exist. He would think on this curious situation more.

He vanished.

  
  
  
  


The Thin Man slipped back through time, no longer engaging Mono in the real world, but simply observing. Far, far back, into a forest, a school, a city -- Mono was always drawn to the TVs, though the Thin Man couldn’t see what for. All he saw was a tiny hand splayed across the glass, then his dear creeping up and ripping Mono free of the hold.

Once she wasn’t there, Mono had nobody to save him from the thrall of the screens. How he succumbed so quickly, so easily to that gentle snowy hum. He was weak, unworthy of his dear's affections.

And then he jumped through sets.

Suddenly, somehow, Mono was leaning forward one second, then falling from another television set in another place entirely. It was impossible. The only interaction the world had with the TVs was to succumb to them, not this. Not using them, seemingly now immune to their hypnosis. He berated himself for not realizing sooner that it was Mono, not his dear, not even the Flesh in its fickle ways, who had broken the barrier before to try to snatch her away.

The Thin Man wasn’t the only one interested in Mono, now, either. The Flesh had seen the boy, falling through its realm before being spit back out on the other side. It had seen, and it had allowed it to happen. The Flesh knew something he did not. It wanted Mono to come to the tower. The Thin Man didn’t know what he was capable of, but he knew one thing: if he came, then his dear would be in danger.

He stalked away from his observations, and threw the first TV he found off the edge of the stairs. Instead of falling and breaking into a million pieces with a satisfying shatter, it slowed, then began to drift upward until it found equilibrium at roughly his eye height. Mono ran across the screen, hunted by the Viewers whose shows he’d dared interrupt. _Good_.

The Thin Man went to his dear’s rooms, where her large form lay curled on the smashed suitcase, far too tiny now to support her weight. She was sleeping, chest rising and falling in relaxing, gentle movements, her hair swaying with each rough breath that escaped. The music box played its old, haunting tune. He closed the door and sank down, draping his long, lanky arms over his knees.

Eyes closed, the Thin Man simply appreciated her presence, the rhythmic sounds of her slumber, the mere fact that she was here, she was safe. The wood of the door was solid at his back, the walls and mazes knotted up in impossible architecture around them real enough to keep out anyone who dared try to steal her away. That calmed him and reminded him that they were in here, and the monster was out there. Mono could barely traverse the world out there, so tiny and weak despite his unsettling abilities. He couldn’t get to his dear here.

Mono had opened the door. The Thin Man’s eyes snapped open. Of course. He’d been so taken by first seeing his dear, he’d completely forgotten that someone had opened the door to her in the first place. Mono had trespassed in here before. The Flesh had always known.

He stood up so fast that a pile of toys toppled, startling his dear from her rest. She immediately pulled her music box towards her and hunched her long, tangled limbs protectively around it, regarding the Thin Man with wary eyes. He forced himself to be calm.

“I’m sorry, dear. I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said softly, reaching a hand out to her. She contemplated it, then began to crank her music box once more, as though already forgetting he even existed.

The Thin Man watched her keep her own company. Even his dear knew about the boy. Only the Thin Man was out of the loop. He knelt down and snatched up a piece of paper and one of her crayons, drawing a sloppy approximation of Mono’s bag and upper body.

“Dear,” he began, hating how he hesitated once she looked up at him. He held out the picture for her to see. “Who is Mono?”

His dear’s long fingers slipped from the music box’s crank to reach forward, and she stroked them down the picture. “Mono,” she said, voice a happy, broken rasp. “Hi.”

His dear took the picture from the Thin Man’s limp fingers. _Hi, hey,_ little whispers between children flitting at his memories like flies. Somehow, though he was still putting together the pieces, his dear had helped far more than anyone else to solidify his course of action.

The Thin Man wouldn’t kill Mono. Though he wanted to, an instinct told him to let the boy live. He wouldn’t let him come to the tower of his own accord, though, either. No, he’d snatch him up, lock him in a cage, and give him to his dear to keep forever. She would be happy, then, and Mono would no longer be an unknown variable.

As Mono crawled from the sewers, battered and crumpled like a little piece of refuse, the Thin Man appeared before him. It would be a simple matter to catch him like he’d done with his dear. The boy was already so broken, he simply knelt there, paper bag floating away, letting the rain wash blood and grime from his dark hair.

The Thin Man reached for Mono.

His hand was arrested, by -- he didn’t know what. Something caught up in his frequencies, as though he’d crashed into a phase out of sync with his own and it all got tangled around his wrist, halting any movement.

Mono’s hand was lifted too, and the world between them crackled and flickered like a television searching wildly for a signal. The world bent around them, buildings warping away as though sensing how wrong and unnatural their meeting was. Even they knew something the Thin Man did not.

The Thin Man fell back, body crumpled, mind in shock. This boy -- this _child_ could stand against him? He thought of his dear, tucked away in the tower looming behind them. Where Mono was heading. She was _safe_ , and he wanted to ruin that. Terrifyingly, the Thin Man realized that Mono absolutely could, if he got to the tower. 

He climbed to his feet again, ready to rip Mono apart with his bare, crackling hands. They struggled against one another, each pushing at an invisible barrier, shoving the other back, trying to shift their wavelengths in their own favor.

Again, the Thin Man crumpled. They were so evenly matched, so in sync now, but not by his own volition. Mono was matching him, and he couldn’t keep up. The boy had been fighting for his life every day, and the Thin Man had never had to fight a day in his life.

No, wait. That wasn’t right, was it? He’d fought. He’d fought, and hid, and cowered. As though amplifying his own memories with Mono’s, mingling the two into one oscillating note, the Thin Man saw his dear, his beautiful girl, pulled along behind him, hand in hand. Six. That was her name, whispered to him after they’d blasted the Hunter with his own weapon and the ringing in their ears had stopped, the first gift she’d given the Thin Man -- she’d given Mono.

No. No. _No!_ How was this possible? How could he be here, both adult and child? Had the Flesh known and hidden such secrets? _Why?_ If he had known he wouldn’t have -- why would it make Six suffer?

More memories tumbled in, drowning the Thin Man in a sea of eyes and wailing, humming signals. The Flesh. It had eaten away at him, as it did to all, but in such a different way. It ate holes into his mind, left him empty and hollow and alone in the tower, warping him as it had warped the world. He'd forgotten that. He'd forgotten everything. He didn't even know who he was anymore, or who he should have been.

The Thin Man was suddenly so old and so very, very tired, as though he’d lived a thousand lives within those pulsating, leering walls. How could it be so cruel, to do that to a child, to make him do it to Six -- no, he had done that himself, hadn’t he? He alone had kidnapped Six and kept her trapped in that nightmare for his own, selfish desires. Though it wasn't without sin, the Flesh hadn't done that. That was his own burden to bear.

They stared at one another, the Thin Man on one knee, Mono toppled backwards, his dark eyes wide with terror. He couldn’t fight anymore. The Thin Man could win, but --

Six deserved to be free. He knew her, now, in ways he wasn’t able to before. He’d run with her, played as equals, not as captive and captor (and it hurt to admit that was what he was, all this time). He knew what she wanted, the things she never said but which were obvious in every gesture, every noise. For how much of the world he saw, he'd been so blind to her.

The Thin Man had already done such harm to Six. There was no way to make that up, except… except to let Mono do it. Of course. Mono wanted to save her, and she wanted to be saved. Let them grow up together, then, in the wild, dangerous world. Like Six wanted.

He collapsed one final time.

As the world dissolved around him, as Mono stood on shaky feet, the Thin Man saw Six staring down at him, a little girl once more. Her eyes were wide in shock and horror, locked on his own. Then her expression morphed into rage as she recognized who he was. Who he would become. Ah, he remembered this now. It was what he deserved.

Six let go of his hand, and Mono fell into the Flesh.


End file.
